


A Time of Duress

by Philosophizes



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Arranged Marriage, Bigender Character, Developing Relationship, Genderqueer Character, Genderqueer North Italy is important to me, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 19:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1910898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ludwig and Feliciano are the ones left to pick up the pieces after the dust had settled and the ones forced to unite their inheritances; because were the ones who ran away from their families' blood feud.</p>
<p>It would have been nice if they'd done it out of love for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time of Duress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [budgeridoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/budgeridoo/gifts).



* * *

  _“But come, young waverer, come, go with me,_

_In one respect I'll thy assistant be;_

_For this alliance may so happy prove,_

_To turn your households' rancour to pure love.”_

_-Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet_

* * *

The Metropolitan of Ílios took a long, hard look at the two older men in front of him, forcibly bent to their knees by the others standing around them.

“I see your fellow Gentes have finally had enough of your squabbling,” he said quietly, leaning forward in the large wooden chair on the first tier of the dais that served as a mark of Ílios’s ancient status in the imperial order- sovereign, eternally free, as befitted the home world. The meeting hall deadened noise so that none of his words echoed in the draped and tiled expanse; and none of the tumult of the fighting outside the building reached them. “It is past time for that- long past time. I am tired of reading the death tolls your petty wars have cursed us with.”

The man on the left tried to stand, but the woman holding him twisted her hand viciously in his long blonde hair and pressed him harder against the floor, ignoring her brother’s hiss of pain and the scrape of his body armor, more battered and burned than hers, on the stone.

“By rights I should have you executed,” The Metropolitan continued. “Perhaps display your bodies out front, like the humans empires of old would, to deter other criminals and traitors. I would even-”

He settled back against the wood again.

“-not be particularly sorry. That’s a moral failing, I suppose, and I should be properly repentant for it eventually. But the Shahanshah has spoken.”

The assembled people froze.

“Yes,” The Metropolitan told them. “Your violence and your sin was enough to make her tear her eyes from the stars and our children spread out amongst them and look behind her, at the genesis, the heartland, the home world. She looked and she judged and the Shahanshah. Has. Spoken.”

“Banishment,” muttered one of the men hopefully.

“Seizure?” another Gentes asked.

“It appears the Shahanshah has a sense of irony,” The Metropolitan said dryly. “Consolidation.”

The woman holding her brother down wavered a moment.

“Consolidation?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, Eydís. You, Thiudreiks Beilschmidt-”

He pointed to the man who’d tried to stand.

“-and you, Caelestis Vargas-”

The other, now.

“-will resign your positions and retire immediately from public life. You will serve the imperial mandate from the Shahanshah’s Residence, and at her pleasure. Further lapses will _not_ be tolerated. Your property, corporate holdings, and positions practical and ceremonial will be passed on. It is Thiudreiks’s family, I believe, whose youngest family member has nearly finished his university studies.”

The Metropolitan retrieved the message on the folding screen tucked into his coat and made a display of reading it over.

“Ah, yes- Ludwig, it is. He will inherit, effective immediately. For the Vargases- that vagabond grandchild of yours, Caelestis. Feliciano. The same arrangement.”

“Ludwig isn’t _nearly_ ready to be in charge of _any_ of this!” Eydís burst out. “He’s a _scholar,_ not an industrialist, not a politician! He will destroy the family’s finances and reputation!”

“Any more than your brother already has?” The Metropolitan asked archly. “All the elder sons have been staunch supporters this _feud_ \- the Shahanshah is concluding negotiations at this instant, I understand, with the Captain of the Golden Stag.”

He paused, to let this settle in. The Company of the Golden Stag was rightly feared for their relentlessness and brutality, bound and led tightly by an inherent fine-tuned sense of justice. They were free agents, not by any definition under imperial control, but certainly not vigilantes. The Company and its Captain answered to a higher power than the Shahanshah.

“All your niblings but two will be dead within the day. Gilbert has obligations to the Imperial Police; and your sons to other agencies. Ludwig is the only choice.”

“And the Vargases?” Wang Yao asked, the tips of his hair brushing the silk sleeves of his crossed arms.

“Of those old enough to be held accountable, Lovino and Feliciano are the ones who took no part in the fighting-”

Caelestis lurched forward and spat at The Metropolitan’s feet.

“And _you,_ Cristoforo,” he hissed. _”Traitor.”_  

The Metropolitan looked down at him, expression cold.

“And you are no family of mine,” he said. “Not now, and never since I had knowledge enough to look and question. I have a duty I cannot leave. Lovino has a husband and wife on that farm of his, and is thus ineligible.”

“Why should it matter he’s married?” Rahel asked, nose wrinkling in confusion.

The Metropolitan smiled thinly.

“Consolidation, don’t you recall? Ludwig and Feliciano are to be married.”

* * *

Students fled in the wake of the Companier striding down the corridor and the haggard-looking Imperial Police officer accompanying them, pressing flush against walls and ducking into classrooms and stairwells. The Companier and the officer wove through hallways and the grounds paths of the campus, approaching the low dining hall.

A small wave of students had preceded them, and the atmosphere was tense, with an edge of hysteria. One student in particular fought the urge to hide.

The Companier’s head turned, the extra sense that made the members of the Company of the Golden Stag unshakable leading the pair straight to him.

“Ludwig Beilschmidt,” the Companier said, coming to a halt on just the other side of his table. “The Shahanshah requested that a message be borne to you-”

Ludwig’s mouth had gone dry with fear and he could _feel_ the rest of the student body mentally deserting him, even the friends at his table too scared of the Companier to do anything else.

“Your schooling is finished. You will report to The Metropolitan of Ílios in Jericho by the end of the week, and lay claim to all positions and possessions of Thiudreiks Beilschmidt.”

“Why,” Ludwig said, barely managing the word.

In the dead silence of the dining hall, the Imperial Police officer sat down next to his younger brother and said:

“Lutz, the Shahanshah divested Father and Caelestis Vargas of all their authority and relocated them to the Residence as of three hours ago. The war’s over. The Company-”

He didn’t quite finish that thought.

“Aunt Eydís is alive, and her four sons, and me and Luitgard, Erzsébet, and you. For the Vargases there are just the two brothers who left the planet, a houseful of little kids in Rome, and The Metropolitan.”

Ludwig’s eyes flicked to the Companier and back.

_“Everyone?”_

“The other Gentes’s people got a couple,” Gilbert told him. “And the citizen’s uprising in Jericho. But yeah, the Shahanshah called the Company on them, for breaking their citizenship oaths, and The Metropolitan underwrote her negotiation with criminal negligence and civic abuse of the populace’s welfare. I’ve got the Imperial Police to deal with, Aunt Eydís wouldn’t be political acceptable, her sons have other positions, and Luitgard and Erzsébet are only in the family by marriage. It has to be you who takes over Father’s positions.”

Ludwig took a long look around the dining hall, and out the large windows looking out onto campus that took up more space than the actual walls.

“I’m not good for it,” he said quietly.

“The Shahanshah has spoken,” his brother told him. “I’m sorry, Lutz. And she’s also making you get married.”

* * *

Talking about his grandfather put him out of sorts and leaving the farm put him out of sorts and the Company of the Golden Stag would put _anybody_ out of fucking sorts, so of course Lovino Vargas was impressively wrathful by the time he, Antonio, Adele, and the Companier tracked Feliciano down to a jewelry boutique on Qecarro.

Feliciano was bent over a display case, trying on different styles chandelier earrings in the mirror, when they entered. The store was promptly vacated. Feliciano’s head jerked up towards them, left ear sporting a cascade of tiny crystals and silver filigree.

“Feliciano Vargas,” the Companier said. “The Shahanshah requested that a message be borne to you. Your wandering days are over. . You will report to The Metropolitan of Ílios in Jericho by the end of the week, and lay claim to all positions and possessions of Caelestis Vargas.”

“The Shahanshah’s put him and Beilschmidt on house arrest at The Residence on Griolara,” Lovino cut in bluntly. “It’s you and me and Cristino and the kids in Rome now, because she called the Company on everyone else.”

Feliciano blinked dumbly at them a few times, mascaraed lashes brushing against his skin as he tried to process, tried to think-

“She’s making you get fucking _married_ to the Beilschmidt brat she’s shoving into his father’s place.”

That- wasn’t at all what he’d ever wanted.

Feliciano straightened, and unhooked the earring.

“What sort of ceremony will it be?” he asked, voice quavering only slightly.

That brought Lovino up short.

“What?” he asked, completely unprepared for this lack of resistance.

“What sort of ceremony?” Feliciano repeated. “Crowned? Fasting? Shawled? Processional? Contractual?”

“I have no fucking clue, Cristino’s the one doing it!” Lovino snapped. Antonio and Adele quietly convinced the Companier to leave the shop with them. “Probably contractual and maybe something else, depends on if it turns _Political_ or not.”

The shop was much too quiet with just the two of them.

“I want a dress,” Feliciano said abruptly. “I want a new dress, Lovino, I can’t pick _who_ but I can pick _what_ -”

The sentence derailed into a sob, and Lovino stepped forward and pulled his younger sibling into a hug.

“I’m sorry, Feli,” he murmured. “I’m sorry you can’t have that.”

* * *

Cristoforo had seen Ludwig Beilschmidt and Feliciano Vargas exactly once each, when they came to report that they’d arrived, and he’d formally handed over the titles and property they’d gained by Imperial Decree.

Now, standing abruptly and watching in trepidation as the Shahanshah walked across the meeting hall towards him, things had gotten quite a bit more complicated.

The Shahanshah stopped a yard in front of him.

“Metropolitan,” she acknowledged. This close, Cristoforo could see the age in her eyes, longer than any human should ever have. He suspected that the Captain of the Golden Stag, if he ever got close enough to see _their_ eyes, would look much the same. Most of the Companiers had been approximately human, once.

“Shahanshah,” he replied in turn. “I was not expecting you.”

“No one was,” she said simply. “I will be providing for the wedding. I will be in attendance, with members of the court and foreign ambassadors or sovereigns. I expect the Gentes and what family the couple have left to attend.”

“Of course,” Cristoforo said, silently starting to not-quite-panic. “Do you have a firmer idea of non-family guests?”

“Myself, with representatives of the Stelgentes to be determined. The Captain of the Golden Stag, and I imagine they will bring representatives of the Haakon. An Uxscilian delegate, likely a member of the ruling family. Oetrbyke, Aostarth, Eustrn, and Eoswides wish to have a similar arrangement. They may attach themselves to the Captain, given the family connections.”

There would be time to worry about the fact that the wedding would include essentially every important name in international politics later, The Metropolitan told himself firmly.

* * *

The day of the wedding dawned silvery-gray overcast, cool air thick with humidity, as befitted the occasion. Gilbert woke his brother up and helped him into the long, embroidery-stiff coat of office that now compromised the largest part of his formal wear. Antonio helped Feliciano tie up the back of her dress and laid out the livery jewelry she now had as emblems of her new positions, Imperial and Ílian. Cristoforo took a few deep breaths in the meeting hall, composing himself for the ceremony he would soon be presiding over, while in the background Lovino bullied their younger siblings into a semblance of order and the distaff branch sons of the Beilschmidt clan talked quietly amongst themselves, gold and platinum decorations of rank flashing every so often in the light.

Time passed. A light breakfast was laid out in a different part of the Metropolitan’s Palace complex, and the guest-witnesses ate before filing into the meeting hall to take their places standing, conversations overlapping as everyone kept an eye on the empty Metropolitan’s chair.

Cristoforo waited outside the hall, in front of the double doors. Presently, Eydís Beilschmidt arrived with Ludwig, and Lovino with Feliciano. The two parties stared at each other a moment before Eydís picked up on the opening lines of the ceremony.

She grabbed Ludwig’s upper arm and pushed him gently forward, towards the Vargases.

“As eldest of the house, my nephew, Ludwig Beilschmidt.”

Lovino placed a hand on Feliciano’s back, but she stepped forward without prompting.

“As eldest of the house, my sibling, Feliciano Vargas.”

Feliciano held a hand out hesitantly, and Ludwig took it, his single black iron ring clacking softly against her thick gold ones.

The Metropolitan nodded just once, to acknowledge his witnessing of this first section, and turned to go through the doors. The guests beyond quieted and drew apart, leaving a path from the floor to the dais and his chair, the Shahanshah and the Captain of the Golden Stag standing to either side of it in front of their own chairs. A small table was placed in the empty area before them, just in front of a large, thick rug. The marriage contract, which spelled out in precise detail the methods and management of the consolidation of two families’ finances and positions, lay on top. Cristoforo reached the table and skirted it to stand on the other side, watching as Eydís and Lovino led Ludwig and Feliciano, still holding hands, up the path.

Eydís and Lovino fled to the sides after a quick bow to the three dignitaries behind the table. Ludwig and Feliciano stepped forward and signed the contract, one after the other.

Cristoforo caught their hands before they stepped away again, looking them both in the eye solemnly to send silent good wishes. When he let go, they turned to face the crowd, and he began to read the contract out loud for the witnesses.

* * *

Feliciano had sank gracefully to the rug in a swirl of skirts when the reading was concluded and everyone in attendance had responded with the traditional words to finalize a contract, and submitted to Eydís and Lovino returning with a large blanket to drape around the two of them with none of the awkward nervousness Ludwig _knew_ he was projecting loud and clear. Now, guests were queuing up to present gifts while seating cushions and the wedding feast were brought out and arranged on the meeting hall floor.

The Shahanshah was first in line.

“Your Majesty,” Ludwig said, ducking his head- partially in deference, partially to mask any resentment that he was showing from the woman who’d forced this upon him.

“Your Excellencies,” The Shahanshah replied, lips quirking a bit at the idea of these two unproven youths in the high executive and legislative positions of Ílios. She lay an ornate twin display box, glass and mahogany with a black velvet interior for the mounting of livery jewelry, down on the rug before stepping aside. “Good fortune to you in the coming days.”

Next was The Metropolitan. Ludwig greeted him with “Your Eminence” at the same time Feliciano perked up a bit and said “Cristoforo!” happily. It was the first time Ludwig had heard her speak.

The Metropolitan smiled at that, and knelt down quickly on the rug to hug his older sibling and give her a kiss on the cheek.

“I _am_ sorry,” Ludwig heard him murmur. “I’ve heard nothing horrible of him, and much good.”

He elected to pretend he hadn’t heard that, and Cristoforo left behind two parcels of clothing, one a ball gown for Feliciano and one a suit for Ludwig, both in the Ílian style they little in the way of.

The Captain of the Golden Stag stepped forward, and Ludwig found himself at a loss for the proper styling.

“ _‘Captain’_ is fine,” they said, and Ludwig found himself in a position he’d never imagined- staring at the Captain’s unhelmeted face. In all the stories and descriptions, the Captain was never bareheaded. Honey-brown eyes, graying brown-black hair tied back, face lined with middle age. So terribly human, on someone who simply couldn’t be.

The Captain swung the large basket they’d been balancing on a hip down onto the rug with a little grunt.

“A massacre isn’t quite the right fit for a wedding gift,” they said to the couple with a sharp, sardonic smile. “So ambrose apples, instead.”

Feliciano, who’d been reaching for one of the fruits, jerked her hand back.

The smile gained more teeth.

“What, you heard better than to accept food from the Golden Stag? They’ve not been distilled, they’ll do nothing more than some good antibiotic or antidote would. Can’t have this new peace on Ílios fall apart because of sickness or grudge, eh?”

If anyone in earshot had ever had doubts about the veracity of the stories surrounding the longevity of the position of Captain of the Golden Stag granted, they had surely been debunked- the Captain pronounced _‘Ílios’_ the ancient way, _‘helios’_ , from before humanity had ventured bodily into the stars.

“Long life to you,” the Captain said by way of parting, and the gift procession continued.

* * *

The feast was well underway, and Feliciano was distinctly uncomfortable. She’d been sitting on the rug for a good couple hours already, and not once yet had she and her new husband spoken.

She toyed with the skirt of her dress, appreciating the contrast of its green against the rust red field and dusty gold and gray-white line patterning of the rug as she came to a decision. She scooted closer to Ludwig, leaning up against his side and twining their arms.

“Hi,” Feliciano said quietly.

Ludwig looked at her a few moments before answering with an uncertain: “Hello?”

Feliciano suddenly realized she hadn’t really done a lot of planning about where to go _after_ this stage. Usually, conversation just _happened_ when she was around.

“Um- so where were you, before-”

With her free hand, she gestured at the wedding feast.

“University,” Ludwig said. “I was studying history.”

“I was traveling,” Feliciano said, because that always got people talking. “I’ve been traveling since I was old enough to leave home. I’d get on a ship, and hop off at a port, and get a job. I’d stay until I had enough money to keep going or I just couldn’t _stand_ living there anymore, and then go somewhere else. If I couldn’t find a job, I’d go to Lovino’s farm and stay there for a bit.”

“Didn’t it worry you?”

It wasn’t the question she’d been expecting, but she’d heard it, sometimes.

“Yeah,” Feliciano told him, shrugging a bit. “Not a lot though. When I barely had money, and if I thought I was in danger.”

Ludwig started asking the usual questions, the _‘where’_ s and the _‘how was it’_ s and the _‘is it true that there they’_ s, and Feliciano chattered about Ubrilles and Notov and Oskapus and Docury and Apwhion and Theuazuno until everything was over.

* * *

_“And love is not a victory march_

_It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”_

_-Hallelujah, by Kate Voegel_

* * *

They still weren’t used to waking up in the same bed.

It had been bad enough the first night, when the only saving grace of having a single bed to use was that it was large enough to leave at least _some_ space between them.

The next morning, Feliciano had looked at Ludwig blearily over the dining room table and said: “I never wanted something like this. I wanted a _real_ marriage, where money and property weren’t ever mentioned and everyone expected it to be nothing but a party to celebrate us being happy and in love, not a _business deal._ ”

Ludwig stared back sadly and answered him: “I never wanted to get married at all.”

* * *

By the time Ludwig was well and truly drowning in trying to run a series of interplanetary corporations, spending evenings in the office frozen in his chair, stare vacant, dreaming up theses and research projects and the glory days of cities long gone; and Feliciano was spending long, long days at the familial house in Rome running what amounted to full-time babysitting for his gaggle of younger siblings and trying not to explode in frustration at the monotony and petty-mindedness and numbing stressful lethargy; and he and Feliciano had sat jointly on The Metropolitan’s Council in Jericho, the separate seats for Beilschmidt and Vargas preserved for now but reduced to one vote, a joint decision that _had_ to be reached in compromise or capitulation despite the participants complete ignorance of each other’s political trigger points and ethical values and ideals; the press had gone mad over the wedding.

Ludwig returned from the office one night, tired and worn and convinced that _surely_ the next day would spell the dawn of the financial disaster he was certain he was leading the various holdings into, to see Feliciano sitting on the couch, staring blankly at a newsfeed.

The door closed behind him, and Feliciano’s head jerked towards him, and he burst into sobbing. Ludwig stood dumbly for a moment, aching at the way Feliciano could just _let it all out_ and found himself, without really thinking about it, on the couch, collapsed against his spouse, clinging to Feliciano in desperation.

“They’ve made up this whole _story!_ ” Feliciano screamed, throwing the reader the newsfeed was displayed on against the wall. “They’ve made up this _romance_ about us, they’re saying that we met ages ago and kept our love secret and were trying to work our way around our families and get them to reconcile but _we’d never met each other until we got married!_ _You_ were studying history and keeping your head down and _I_ was running away all across the Imperial holdings so my family couldn’t pin me down and _make_ me fight and I _didn’t. Want. This!_ I can’t _go_ anywhere and _every day_ I have to watch _children_ who _refuse_ to listen to me and I just want someone to _care-_ ”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ludwig found himself whispering, and couldn’t remember starting.

“It’s not _your_ fault,” Feliciano said miserably, and leaned into him.

“I’m ruining the companies,” Ludwig blurted. “I know I am; I don’t know anything about business or management or running things, I’m a professional _student._ An academic. A historian. I’ve never had a paying job in my entire _life._ ”

His face was wet, he realized suddenly.

Feliciano dropped his cheek to rest on top of Ludwig’s head. He heard his spouse sniff before plaintively asking:

“Switch with me?”

* * *

It took the corporate people a while to get used to Feliciano at the helm. She was pushy where Ludwig would follow anyone’s suggestions, sneaky where he would capitulate, a risk-taker where he would freeze with indecision.

The corporate people acclimatized quickly, and when Ludwig turned up one day in the late morning, everyone in the executive offices seemed unbearably high-energy and enthusiastic. He waited for lull in the activity whirlwind, then got someone to let him into Feliciano’s office.

Feliciano gave him a cursory smile while she continued her call, the expression turning into something more genuine when he started producing food.

“That’s great!” she told the person on the other line. “We can work from that- hey, are you free in another hour or so? My husband just came in- great! I’ll spread the details around and call you back!”

She hung up and started investigating the food.

“I could never do those calls,” Ludwig told her.

She shrugged.

“They’re easy for me- oooh, tagliatelle! Thank you Ludwig! Did you have to tell me something, or…”

“I just-” he felt awkward all of a sudden. Why did this _always_ happen to him? “You said, a while ago, that you just wanted someone to care-”

Feliciano looked up at him sharply.

“-and, um- _I_ care, Feliciano. I thought I should tell you. I know you wanted something completely different out of a marriage and I haven’t known you that long but I care about you and how you’re doing and I- I’d like to be friends. The marriage was a punishment for my father and your grandfather, not for us. _We_ shouldn’t have to be-”

Feliciano smiled softly and reached across her desk to take his hand.

“You’re really sweet, Ludwig.”

Ludwig managed a hopeful smile back.

* * *

One thing Ludwig was good at was lists, and planning from them. He sat in one of the window seats at the house in Rome, supervising the young Vargas children more by presence than attention, writing in his new notebook.

_Feliciano likes to be told he’s beautiful._

_Feliciano’s favorite clothes are in green, but when he wants to be noticeable he wears reds._

_Feliciano will stay in bed as long as possible on days she doesn’t have to do anything._

_Feliciano cooks with lots of herbs._

_When Feliciano talks about Lovino’s farm, her favorite places are the kitchen garden, the flower garden, and the lake._

_Feliciano likes dogs and cats equally._

_I have never seen Feliciano turn down hugs or kisses._

_Feliciano wants romance._

“Ludwig Ludwig Ludwig!” one of the children insisted. “Stories!”

Ludwig looked up from his notebook at the young girl clinging to his pant leg.

“Does everyone want stories?” he asked.

She nodded.

He got off the window seat and held her hand as they went over to the other children. As soon as he sat down on the floor, he was mobbed by children wanting to cuddle. Ludwig let them sort themselves out, then said: “Today, _you_ get to tell me things first. What does Feliciano like?”

* * *

Going out in public together was a disaster. The press continued running with their story of epic romance, perpetrated more out of marketing than ethos, and they couldn’t escape.

“I’m _sorry,_ ” Feliciano whispered when their transport started pulling up outside the museum complex and they saw the media mob. “I just wanted to take you somewhere I thought you’d like.”

“I do like it,” Ludwig told him, and then inspiration struck. “Just- don’t get out yet.”

He pulled out his messenger and started tapping away. Presently, someone in a startling-vibrant wine red dress strode through the museum doors and started barreling down the steps. The reporters quickly started backpedaling.

Ludwig opened the door and helped Feliciano slide out.

“Feli, this is Erzsébet,” Ludwig told him as the reporters started trying to regain their composure. “My sister-in-law. Thank you for coming down, Erzsi.”

She slapped him on the back and started accompanying them up the steps. Every few feet a reporter looked like they might say something, and shrank back when she glared at them.

“Absolutely, Ludwig. How’ve you been? I haven’t heard anything from you in _ages_ and I couldn’t get to Jericho in time for the wedding-”

Feliciano let their talk wash over him until they emerged into the museum’s main hall, where the rest of the fundraiser guests were. Immediately, they were set upon by a blonde man.

“Why, _Erzsébet,_ ” he said, doing something suggestive with his eyebrows. “ _Do_ introduce us.”

Erzsébet punched him in the shoulder and slung an arm around the woman.

“François, my brother-in-law Ludwig, and his spouse Feliciano. Ludwig, François- François was a friend of Roderich’s.”

Ludwig shook hands gravely, and tried to picture his uptight cousin being friends with this man. It wasn’t as if Roderich had had much contact with the rest of the family before the feud had gotten him killed, but he liked to think he’d known _enough_ about the man through Gilbert and Erzsébet to know the sort of person he’d been.

Feliciano gave him a hug that François returned happily, and Erzsébet mentioned something about an art thing they’d been discussing, and Feliciano jumped right in.

Ludwig smiled a little, and went off to look at the exhibit.

* * *

Nobody really _visited_ Uaclleon- the Golden Stag didn’t need much they couldn’t make themselves, and their medicine and their weapons and their science were theirs alone, not for anyone who wasn’t a Companier or in a Companier family.

But their money was good and they had diplomatic relations, of a sort, with the Empire and the other peoples, and there was nothing preventing the Shahanshah from suggesting to the Metropolitan that ‘ _The Captain seemed like they rather liked Ludwig and Feliciano at the wedding’_ and the Metropolitan from sending the two of them as the once-a-year diplomatic meet-up between Ílios and the Golden Stag.

So Feliciano and Ludwig landed on Uaclleon, not sure what to expect.

The landing area was a large expanse of bare stone with two large hangars and some smaller buildings, presumably for processing passengers and merchandise. A Companier was waiting for them by the smallest one, at the edge of the landing area.

Feliciano had problems with the Companier uniforms. It was easy, with Imperial uniforms, to tell what rank one person was relative to another- whichever had the more decoration was the more important.

But the Golden Stag decorated _everything,_ from underthings to formal wear, and maintenance closet to congresshall. Just on this one Companier there was fur, leatherwork, kikko patterning, and the requisite stiff metallic embroidery that seemed to be the Companier answer to the impossibility of decorating clothing with the same gilt-scrollwork-on-lacquer that was everywhere on their weapons; and Feliciano had no idea if any of it _meant_ anything.

“Ahzdeh Vargas, Ahzdeh Beilschmidt,” the Companier greeted them, extending their hand- palm up, fingers curled. Feliciano and Ludwig locked fingers with them in turn. “Sargent Adem ian Haakon, for your service.”

The Sargent led them off the landing area and towards the outdoor market, the stone below them narrowing into a path with a gradual downward slope on both sides that tripped Ludwig up, the edges of the stone bleeding from scrubbed bare into mossy to covered by soil and grass. The marketgoers parted for them as the Sargent took them on a winding path through the crowd towards the town- the capital? No one had bothered to give Ludwig or Feliciano a name or a real description of the place- and the congresshall.

They were shown to a set of guest rooms, promises from the Sargent on behalf of the Captain that diplomacy would happen that evening, given the first hospitality gifts, and left with their bags.

Ludwig examined the window in their temporary sitting room and discovered that it split down the middle in swung open inwardly, with hooks on the wall to secure the panes, instead of rolling into the wall the way they did on Ílios. Their suite looked out over a partially-meadowed area, the grass and flowers cutting meandering swathes through the trees. There were tables and seats and somewhat-mowed areas, and people, and he guessed it was a public park.

“It’s very beautiful here,” he remarked.

“I saw!” Feliciano said, going to town with the hospitality gifts. He’d unpacked his bundle of clothing and put on- Ludwig wasn’t sure what it was. It was kind of like a skirt, but it was thick and bright and, of course, done up with embroidery and metalwork. It belted up just under the breast and fitted tight through to the widest part of the hips before hanging loose, a short mid-thigh panel in front and the other wrapping around the rest of the circumference, falling to the floor.

“That doesn’t look comfortable,” Ludwig told him.

“But it’s _pretty,_ ” Feliciano insisted, pulling on the twisted, matching headband and hunting around in his luggage for some gold jewelry to match. “See? I’m pretty!”

“Yes, you’re very pretty,” Ludwig agreed.

“ _And_ I packed a picnic lunch!”

“You what?”

“Come on, Ludwig, we’re going to the park.”

* * *

_‘Wait, it wasn’t like that?’_

Feliciano frowned at the messenger and tapped back: _‘Of course it wasn’t, we were both trying to stay as far away from the family stuff as possible’_

Adele shot back with: _‘Well, you sure can’t tell. You two ACT like you’ve been secretly seeing each other. You’ve just got that sort of we know each other really well air about you’_

_‘That’s a thing?’_ and _‘We live together it kind of just happens. We agreed to be friends’_

_‘You sure you’re just friends? You’re married and all’_

Feliciano hunted around for her lunch without looking up from the message.

_‘So? You don’t have to be in love to get married’_

_‘Still’_

“Is it the office?” Ludwig asked from the chair next to her.

Feliciano shook her head.

“Adele- she thought the reporters were right about us being in love. She says we _act_ like we’re in love.”

Ludwig got what Feliciano privately thought of as his ‘serious thinking face’ on.

“ _Are_ we?” he asked hesitantly, after thinking about it a while. “I- uh- I mean- I do like you. Quite a bit.”

“Mmmm,” Feliciano said, drawing the sound out.

“Feli.”

_“Welllll-”_

* * *

Ludwig had the first tabloid article that actually got a picture of them kissing printed in duplicate and framed. One he hung up in the front hallway of their house in Rome; and the other sent to the Shahanshah.

Before he sent it, Feliciano took a red marker to the top of the blown-up page and wrote:

_‘Thank you!  
                   - Feli _ _♥’_


End file.
